The Wonk Room

Anti-Immigrant Front Group Launches Ad Campaign Claiming Reduced Immigration Will ‘Save The Earth’

A group whose entire mission is built on the notion that immigrants are contributing to global climate change, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), has released two new ads which claim that “saving the earth in California starts with reduced immigration.” According to CAPS’ logic, “immigration and births to immigrants” lead to unsustainable population growth which leads to global warming and is amplified by the fact that immigrants’ energy use quickly becomes “Americanized” when they move to the US.

The television ad informs Californians that they have some “tough decisions to make” about immigration and global warming:

“Concerned about Americans’ huge carbon foot print? Then you should be concerned about immigration… Reducing immigration won’t solve global warming, but it is part of the solution. We’ve got some tough choices to make.”

Watch it:

The corresponding radio ad tells Californians that they have to face an “inconvenient truth” about immigration and climate change:

“The inconvenient truth is that population growth and environmental degradation go hand in hand…by 2050 our population will reach 60 million — driven almost entirely by immigration and immigrant births. And when immigrants come to California, their carbon footprint quadruples what it was…So if we’re going to do our share to save the earth, our immigration levels must be reduced. That’s a tough pill for compassionate Californians to swallow, but swallow it we must.“

Listen:

A CAPS press release indicates that the ads are based on the shoddy research presented by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a group which has been described as having “never found any aspect of immigration it likes.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for New Community, both groups were founded and funded by John Tanton — a man with “troubling associations with racists, white supremacists, and political extremists.” Other “Tanton network” organizations have parroted similar claims, including NumbersUSA, Progressives for Immigration Reform, and the hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform which recently launched a new social networking website, fairdebate.org, aimed at “furthering the debate” on “US overpopulation and the role that immigration plays.”

All of Tanton’s organizations are fixated on scapegoating immigrants and sidestep the fact that the central problem has more to do with US consumption patterns. Rather than asking Americans to get rid of their gas guzzling automobiles, CAPS suggests getting rid of immigrants. However, energy consumption is driven by a host of factors totally unrelated to population size, such as societal dependence on polluting and non-renewable fossil fuels; utilization of energy-efficient technologies; and the development of mass transit systems that minimize individual automobile use. That explains why the World Resources Institute found that though the US is home to 23% fewer people than the European nations of the EU-15, it still produces 70% more greenhouse gases.

Ultimately, CAPS is essentially suggesting that the world would be better off if immigrants stayed poor in their less consuming, less industrialized countries. Based on this logic, illegal immigration isn’t the problem, increased wealth and international development are. However, quite the contrary, “immigrants, in essence, are doing precisely what planners want the rest of us to do,” says to UCLA professor Ali Modarres who recently found that, compared to Americans, more immigrants walk, bike, bus, or metro to work and fewer drive cars in the state of California. While CAPS and others blame immigrants for everything from traffic jams to depleting aquifers, Mordares suggests that, “immigrants are greening our cities, how about giving them a break?”

Anti-Immigrant Group Says US Soccer Team’s Ethnic Make-Up Signals Lack Of Assimilation

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a group identified as part of the anti-immigrant “nativist lobby,” is now targeting soccer fans in a weak attempt at using the ethnic make-up of the US soccer team to somehow prove that immigration isn’t “helping” America. In a blog post, CIS staffer David Seminara wonders why the US men’s soccer team is so “American”:

If soccer is the world’s sport, and America is the world’s leading beacon for immigrants around the globe, why aren’t immigrants making a bigger impact playing soccer for the Stars and Stripes?…Perhaps the issue here is one of assimilation, or lack thereof in a post-American society, or perhaps it’s just the free agency concept spilling over from professional leagues into international competition. Either way, it sure would be nice to see all of our best players representing the Stars and Stripes, and being cheered by the home crowds. An even greater cause for concern than the lack of immigrants on our national side is the fact that some top-notch U.S.-born soccer players are choosing to play for other countries.

However, the fact that there are few immigrants on the US Men’s and Women’s National Soccer team says a lot more about what’s wrong with the country’s immigration system than what’s wrong with immigrants. In order to play for the US soccer team, players have to be US citizens and the process of legal immigration and naturalization in the US is not easy. To begin with, there are overly restrictive and limited avenues for obtaining legal immigration status in the US. Green cards are only distributed to foreigners who have family members already legally present in the US, political refugees, foreign workers with certain job skills and education-levels that can find an employer to sponsor their visa, and the lucky winners of the annual Diversity “lottery” Visa program which makes green cards available only to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the US. All of these legal avenues are subject to stringent restrictions that cap visas, irrespective of the supply or demand for workers.

Once here, the process of becoming a US citizen is no walk in the park either. In order to become a US citizen, most individuals must be 18 years-old, have had legal permanent resident status (a green card) for at least 5 years, demonstrate continuous residency and “good moral character,” pass English and U.S. history and civics exams, and pay an application fee. At this point, application fees are so high that citizenship applications are down 62%.

Seminara lists off three US-born children of immigrants who chose to play for the national teams of their parents’ countries to argue that immigration isn’t helping the US in terms of soccer. Meanwhile, Stephen Piggott of the Center for New Community points out that five of the starting 11 players who recently played and won a game against Spain — the number one ranked team in the world — Tim Howard, Carlos Bocanegra, Oguchi Onyewu, Ricardo Clark, and Jozy Altidore are the sons of Hungarian, Mexican, Nigerian, Trinidad, Tobagonian and Haitian immigrants. According to the International Federation of Association of Football (FIFA) world rankings, the US is currently ranked #11 out of 203 other countries.

Seminara also doesn’t name all the talented immigrant soccer players who want to play for the US team, but are ineligible. The US National Soccer team has expressed interest in Costa Rican immigrant Rodney Wallace, however, since he is only 20 years-old and didn’t start the process to attain citizenship until a few years ago, it’s going to be a while until he’s eligible to play. Sengalese immigrant and soccer player Macoumba Kandji wants to play for the US team, but he was only recently granted asylum status in the US, has no green card, and is years away from being granted citizenship. In Orange County, three high school soccer superstars caught the eye of college recruiters, but the fact that they are undocumented immigrants means that they have no chance of getting a sports scholarship, let alone playing for the national team despite the fact that they “were coached and groomed in the US.” Meanwhile, at the local level, a nationwide crackdown on immigration has shrunk some area’s “entrenched Hispanic soccer leagues.” In Prince William County, VA, immigrant players and fans stopped coming to games out of fear of being picked up or intimidated by local police who have been granted the power to enforce immigration laws through a controversial program known as 287(g).

CIS actually promotes even tighter restrictions on legal immigration and has proposed policies that support the deportation of the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US.

Anti-Immigrant Group Bashes ‘Out Of Touch’ Judeo-Christian Movement For Immigration Reform

Our guest blogger is Allison Johnson, Campaign Coordinator for Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR) at Sojourners.

Earlier this week, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released two reports, one titled “A Biblical Perspective on Immigration Policy” and another “No ‘Progress by Pesach’: The Jewish Establishment’s Usurpation of American-Jewish Opinion on Immigration.” It is clear that the anti-immigrant group which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as having “never found any aspect of immigration it likes” is deeply concerned about an emerging trend: people of faith seeking guidance from their respective traditions in grappling with the issue of immigration reform. CIS’ lengthy reports seem to have one goal in mind: to delegitimize the role faith plays for millions of Americans who see their moral values in alignment with just and humane immigration reform.

The author of “A Biblical Perspective on Immigration Policy” describes the proactive advocacy and involvement of national denominations in the immigration debate, naming the Catholic Church, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Southern Baptist Convention as being “out of touch” with people in the pews. It states:

“Yet such self-described ‘compassion’ among religious elites differs from the perspective of most rank-and-file Christians. The laity generally opposes legalization and supports enforcement of immigration laws.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Steinlight berates “American Jewish leaders” for waging a “counterfeit ‘civil rights’ campaign for illegal aliens,” and proceeds to scold them for not being “better educated, or at least chastened, contemporaries.” Steinlight focuses on criticizing “Progress by Pesach,” a campaign for humane immigration reform launched on behalf of a coalition of Jewish organizations from “various Jewish traditions” which includes the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, National Council of Jewish Women, and Union for Reform Judaism. Though Steinlight himself admits that “every constituent part of the American-Jewish Establishment engaged in domestic public policy signed onto this effort,” he refers to the alliance as “politically correct McCarthyists” with a “a putatively moral premise” that doesn’t resonate with most American Jews.

Quite the contrary, a new report released yesterday by the Center for American Progress points out that “the plight of an immigrant is as old as humanity” and “the response of people of faith remains constant.” The report documents grassroots-led social activism on behalf of faith communities that are neither “coordinated or part of one network.” “They are people who have just become fed up and have reached out to undocumented immigrants because of their faith commitments to caring for the neighbor,” explains former president of Chicago Theological Seminary, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite. Between January and July of this year more than 25,000 mostly “rank-and-file Christians” gathered in churches to call for immigration reform and an end to the separation of immigrant families as part of the Families United Tour. The Interfaith Immigration Coalition, a network of religious groups working on immigration reform, gathered people of faith at 167 events in 133 cities for prayer vigils to protect immigrants and their families and to persuade congressional members to enact comprehensive reform in February alone.

Each person interprets scripture through a particular cultural, historical and social context. It is ingrained in the overarching narrative of the Judeo-Christian story that God’s people are to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. The actions of a growing faith-driven movement should demonstrate to the rest of the country that not only are people of faith preaching from the pulpit but are living out the call in Hebrew scriptures:

“The stranger who resides with you shall be as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:34)

The Nativists Behind The Man Who Called Obama A Liar

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) has received a lot of attention for calling President Obama a liar last night when he asserted that undocumented immigrants will not benefit from health care reform. Most commentators and politicians have denounced Wilson’s unruly behavior, though not enough have bothered to highlight the inherent fallacy of his accusations. Undocumented immigrants are in fact explicitly barred from receiving any health care benefits under both the House and Senate bills and a closer look at all those who restlessly suggest otherwise sheds some light on the radical nativist underpinnings of their anti-health care reform crusade.

To begin with, Wilson is a member of the Southern heritage group, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which favors secession and defends slavery is stock full of white supremecists and right-wing extremists. Crooks and Liars further reports that, as a state legislator, Wilson went against his own party and voted with seven lone right-wingers to keep the Dixie Rebel flag flying over the South Carolina state capitol building.

As a federal lawmaker, Wilson became a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), a group of (mostly Republican) representatives founded by former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) with the mission of stopping “the explosive growth in illegal immigration,” “reversing the growth in legal immigration,” and halting “amnesties.” Other notoriously anti-immigrant members of HIRC include Steve King (R-IA), who described immigration as a “slow-motion Holocaust,” and Lamar Smith (R-TX), who equates undocumented immigrants with “terrorist weapons.” HIRC members Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), and King all proclaimed that undocumented immigrants would receive health care benefits long before Wilson’s outburst. The two Republican representatives, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) and Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV), who proposed amendments to the House health care bill that would’ve added stringent citizenship verification mechanisms are active members of the HIRC as well. Heller and Deal also lead the fight to overturn the 14th Amendment and end the policy of automatically granting anyone who is born in the country US citizenship.

Wilson’s reaction last night was certainly out of line, but his indefensible fit of temper was illustrative of a larger discussion taking place amongst HIRC members and anti-immigrant groups who see the health care debate as yet another opportunity to promote their nativist agenda by advancing illogical fears, misplaced anger, and calculated misinformation. HIRC is now headed by Brian Bilbray (R-CA) — a former lobbyist for the anti-immigrant hate group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The Center for New Community reports that FAIR paid him almost $300,000 for work on its behalf between May 2002 and July 2005. Since then, Bilbray has announced his intentions to “work closely” with groups such as FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), another “FAIR spin-off group” that has been identified as part of the “nativist lobby.” It comes as no surprise that HIRC’s health care reform haters have regularly relied on the shoddy “expertise” of FAIR, CIS, and their sister-group, NumbersUSA, to promote the myth that undocumented immigrants will be covered under the bill. Another anti-immigrant group, Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), has gone as far to call Wilson a “brave Congressmen” for calling Obama out on his “lie” and have advised their membership to personally thank him.

Wilson has co-sponsored several pieces of English-only legislation and supported efforts to report undocumented immigrants who seek emergency medical care. In 2006, he declared “it is time to curtail the invasion of illegal aliens.”

View this post en Español.

CIS Event Exploits ‘Mind Boggling’ Health Care Reform To Promote Reduced Immigration

Today, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) — known as the “nativist lobby’s supposedly ‘independent’ think tank” — held a panel on immigration’s impact on health care reform. As usual, the group which has been regularly characterized as having “never found any aspect of immigration it likes,” used the current health care debate as an opportunity to argue that immigration is bad for America.

According to CIS, immigrants account for 27.1% of the uninsured and 64% of undocumented immigrants were uninsured in 2006. However, it’s puzzling that CIS can reach any conclusion about the undocumented population when its analysis is supposedly based on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which doesn’t ask questions about its respondents’ immigration status. They also don’t mention that the majority of uninsured people — 78% — are US citizens. All of this data is weakly tied to the point that most of these immigrants will be covered by health care legislation and that will pave the way for rabid reform that gives undocumented immigrants access to all government benefits. Panelist Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explains:

“We have a complete open door for every illegal immigrant current and in the future to simply enroll and receive benefits under this program. We will not only not check them at the door, we will not check them once they begin to receive the benefits. If you’re going to do that with respect to health care, why would you not also establish the same precedent with respect to food stamps, public housing, earned income taxed credit and so forth. And I believe that that is in fact the direction that Congress wants to go to to allow all welfare benefits to be fully available to all illegal immigrants...we will begin to draw the seriously ill from all over the world to begin to come here to receive free medical treatment…it is an absolutely mind boggling precedent.”

Both the Senate and House proposed health care bills explicitly state that undocumented immigrants will not be eligible for any federal health care insurance, but Rector is all worked up because there aren’t any harsh immigration enforcement mechanisms built into the bill. There’s actually a good reason for that. An article in the Hoefstra Law Review points out that when Colorado passed a series of controversial measures requiring applicants for most state benefits to prove their immigration status, the effect on US citizens was devastating. It cost the state $2 million in its first year alone and, despite having promised to eliminate 50,000 undocumented immigrants from the state’s public benefit rolls, as of October 2008 state officials could not identify how many, if any, undocumented immigrants were being denied public services. Another study by the Government Accountability Office found that documentation requirements used to prove medicaid eligibility caused thousands of eligible U.S. citizens to lose Medicaid coverage without saving taxpayers any money: for every $100 spent by taxpayers to implement documentation requirements in six states, only 14 cents were saved.

It is however true that the US needs to do something about its broken immigration system — which brings CIS to it’s main point and motivation for talking about health care in the first place. CIS Research Director Steven Camarota explains:

“If we want to reduce the uninsured population and avoid large costs for taxpayers in the health care system we need to enforce immigration laws and reduce illegal immigrants. And on legal immigration, moving forward in the future, we would need to allow in many fewer immigrants who have little education.”

Watch it:

CIS and Rector aren’t likely to admit it, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, had the US legalized undocumented immigrants under the 2007 immigration bill, it would have generated $48 billion in new revenue from administrative fees and income and payroll taxes alone.

Treehugger Post Poses Anti-Immigration Population Control Argument

Treehugger.com recently posted a piece positing that immigration is “at odds” with sustainability. The post is about an essay by Joseph Chamie which recently appeared in YaleGlobal and was largely discredited by the Economist shortly thereafter.

Treehugger.com blogger David Friedlander recaps Chamie’s argument that the US should rethink its “pro-growth immigration policies” and consider the “demographic realities, future population projections and likely environmental costs” of immigration. Friedlander cites US energy consumption and suggests that immigration-fueled population growth could “be disastrous for the planet.” According to Chamie, reducing immigration would magically solve “domestic problems as well as many of those abroad, especially energy and resource consumption, climate change and environmental sustainability.” Chamie also randomly injects race and ethnicity into his assessment — a point that has little bearing on his overall argument other than to severely weaken it:

“Immigration is also altering America’s ethnic composition and culture, i.e., less European and more Latin American, Asian and African. Throughout the 19th century and most of the 20th, the US foreign born population was predominately from European countries, e.g., Germany, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom. Today the top five countries are no longer of European origin but are Mexico, China, Philippines, India and Vietnam, with Mexico accounting for a third of the foreign born. As a result, America will increasingly look, sound and act differently over the coming decades – which is neither good nor bad but different.“

Essentially, Chamie’s whole argument is based on the ill-conceived notion that we live in a “lifeboat with limited resources” and that immigration will sink the boat. However, immigration isn’t really the problem — American consumption patterns and energy use are. According to the World Resources Institute, the U.S. is home to 23% fewer people than the European nations of the EU-15, yet still produces 70% more greenhouse gases. Along those lines, the McKinsey Global Institute offers an alternative solution to Chamie’s immigration policy prescriptions: promoting policies that boost energy productivity — the level of output achieved from the energy consumed — such as building shells, compact fluorescent lighting, and high-efficiency water heating. A recent study meanwhile suggests that immigrants are actually “greening our cities” due to the widespread use of sustainable public transportation by the immigrant population.

After anti-immigrant nativists attempted to take over the Sierra Club in 2004, environmental groups have been careful not to conflate immigration levels with environmental woes — but that didn’t stop Chamie or Friedlander from what Imagine2050 blogger Katie Bezrouch describes as falling “right into the well-laid plans of anti-immigrant groups trying to create fear around immigration in the minds of environmentalists.” Well-known anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA, along with hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform, have long been using flawed logic to invoke green-friendly arguments that scapegoat immigrants and ignore the complex problems at hand. The Economist explains:

“America’s domestic problems aren’t going to go away if immigration is restricted, but millions of people will lose the opportunity to better their lives and the lives of their family members. And the earth’s environmental challenges won’t go away if would-be immigrants are prevented from migrating. And the world will be utterly unable to solve its significant challenges so longer as problems of global import are viewed through a narrowly nationalistic lens. There is no such thing as ‘American Warming’.”

Libertarian Think Tank Cites Economic Benefits Of Pro-Immigration Policies

This past Friday, the Cato Institute — a libertarian think tank — released a detailed report entitled “Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform,” showing that the legalization of undocumented workers would significantly raise the overall income of the native-born. The findings were compared against the negative effect that increased enforcement and lower immigration levels would have on native-born income levels.

The report uses an equilibrium model that was developed for the U.S. International Trade Commission to prove that legalizing undocumented immigrants could increase U.S. household income by a total of approximately $180 billion. Meanwhile, a policy aimed at reducing immigration could cause household incomes to drop by a total of $80 billion. According to Cato, reducing low-skilled immigration “biases the occupational mix of employment” of the entire economy towards lower-paying jobs and is ultimately a “dead-weight loss.” Any increase in wages would be severely offset by the costly “prosecution mitigating activities” that increased enforcement would entail. In stark contrast, Cato researchers Peter B. Dixon and Maureen T. Rimmer explain what happens in their economic model when undocumented workers are legalized and legal immigration increases:

“While our modeling suggests that there would be reductions in the number of jobs for U.S. workers in low-skilled occupations, this does not mean that unemployment rates for these U.S.workers would rise. With increases in low-skilled immigration, the U.S. economy would expand, creating more jobs in higher-skilled areas. Over time, some U.S. workers now in low-paying jobs would move up the occupational ladder, actually reducing the wage pressure on low-skilled U.S. workers who remain in low-skilled jobs.“

Cato’s findings contradict those put forth by the heavy-handed conservative Heritage Foundation and the psuedo-science arguments of NumbersUSA. Today, the “nativist lobby’s supposedly ‘independent’ think tank,” Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), released two reports that essentially boil down to the point that immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born workers. However, CIS’ shallow research conveniently overlooks Cato’s nuanced approach which shows that encouraging legal immigration might actually expand the labor market over time and legalizing undocumented workers would raise wages for all those who are employed.

In a press briefing which aired this morning, Cato’s Trade Policy Studies Director Daniel Griswold called on Republicans to “stand up and transcend a minority nativist element that just seems to oppose immigrants generally.” Griswold also emphasized Cato’s support of a guest worker program — a controversial provision that the nation’s two largest labor federations both strongly oppose. Watch it:

Why Counting Undocumented Immigrants In The 2010 Census Counts For A Lot

John S. Baker, professor of constitutional law at Louisiana State University, has an op-ed featured in today’s Wall Street Journal in which he frets that including undocumented immigrants in Census Bureau data will result in a “malapportionment of Congress.” What Baker doesn’t tell you is that not counting undocumented immigrants could slow recovery from the economic recession and lead to bad public policies based on incomplete and inaccurate census information.

Baker argues that the census should only count citizens and legal permanent residents. Baker complains that, by his math, “illegal aliens” could result in California getting nine House seats “it doesn’t deserve.” According to Baker:

“The U.S. Census Bureau is set to count all persons physically present in the country—including large numbers who are here illegally. The result will unconstitutionally increase the number of representatives in some states and deprive some other states of their rightful political representation. Citizens of ‘loser’ states should be outraged…The Census Bureau can of course collect whatever data Congress authorizes. But Congress must not permit the bureau to unconstitutionally redefine who are “We the People of the United States.”

However, Baker forgets that the census serves many other purposes, namely the allocation of scarce federal resources for states and localities. Census data is used to distribute federal funding and Community Development Block Grants that benefit all residents. In a recently released report, the Drum Major Institute (DMI) shows that not counting undocumented immigrants would lead to inaccurate demographic information and result in costly mistakes in infrastructure, education, and healthcare planning. DMI points out that businesses also rely on accurate social, economic and demographic census information so they can make smart investment decisions. DMI cites a PricewaterhouseCoopers study of the 2000 Census which projected a loss of $4 billion from 2002 to 2012 for the District of Columbia and 31 affected states due to undercounting of the total population.

Finally, DMI argues that “leaving out undocumented immigrants deprives citizens of political power and political voice.” While Baker worries about the fate of “loser” states, DMI points out that concerns about “vote dilution are misplaced.” Children, ex-felons, legal residents, and several other nonvoters are also included in the census apportionment data in order to paint an accurate portrait of a state’s demographic makeup and population density that’s key to effective and adequate representation. Michelle Chen at the Colorlines Blog points out that excluding undocumented immigrants from the census is usually proposed by nativists who care more about making “a politically invisible population disappear,” than rational policy-making.

Anti-immigrant zealot Mark Krikorian himself criticized Baker for conflating “illegal aliens” with legal residents, describing his faulty logic as being “sloppy and poorly thought-out.” Krikorian isn’t much more enlightening. He suggests either asking census participants about their immigration status (which would increase distrust and dissuade most foreign residents from cooperating) or stepping-up hardline immigration enforcement measures to “scare off illegals” altogether.

Meanwhile, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that many immigrants are leaving California, which could cost the state a House seat after the 2010 census is completed. In the case of Baker’s homestate, immigrants have given Louisiana a much-needed population boost and helped rebuild its infrastructure following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Anti-Immigrant Group Accuses Human Coyotes Of Threatening Wild Pigs, Bears, and Mountain Lions

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a video today that they claim documents the wildlife and environmental damage that undocumented immigrants and their “coyote smugglers” are inflicting on the Coronado National Forest in Arizona. The narrator, Janice Kephart, doesn’t have any scientific credentials and is no environmentalist. But that didn’t stop her from going green to promote CIS’ anti-immigrant agenda. Watch it:

Kephart doesn’t cite a single shred of evidence, but rather uses isolated “hidden camera” footage from “Borderinvasionpics.com” of wildlife pit against clips of suspected border-crossings to make the case that undocumented immigrants “have destroyed fragile Arizona ecosystems.” The same clips of “human coyotes and their clients” are played over and over to give Kephart more credence than she actually deserves. Kephart swears that the photos of strewn garbage and undergarments in trees once belonged to “illegal aliens,” not negligent backpackers or mischievous hikers. Kephart worries about what will happen to a bear or a mountain lion if it crosses the paths of humans:

“The animals frequently cross alien foot paths like this wild pig seen roaming on a trail also frequented by groups of men and women…A beautiful and hungry mature bear sniffs for food on a well-worn illegal path. This bear might be unwillingly in jeopardy…What if the bear encounters the human coyotes or a cartel next time?“

Chances are that a giant hungry bear or mountain lion has a lot less to worry about than the individuals who bump into them.

CIS and Kephart have put out this video to raise “questions about environmentalists’ focus on stopping a border fence.” Biologists have warned that the 700-mile border wall currently under construction will threaten wildlife species. In 2008, Defenders of Wildlife sued the Bush administration for waiving three dozen federal environmental laws to start building the wall. The National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, and the Sierra Club have all come out strongly against its construction. There’s isn’t documentation of any of these groups ever discussing the environmental impacts of immigrants that Kephart puts forth. In fact, a video released by the Sierra Club states “the proposed border wall will not stop human migration, but instead does unnecessary and serious harm to precious natural areas.” Watch it:

CIS’ Jerry Kammer Says Immigration Raids ‘Boost’ Union Organizing To Promote Anti-Immigrant Agenda

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the “nativist lobby’s independent think tank which has never found any aspect of immigration it likes,” has come out with a new report claiming that immigration raids “boost” union organizing. The author, Jerry Kammer, comes to the counter-intuitive conclusion that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) won its 15-year-long unionizing battle at Smithfield Food’s largest hog processing plant in Tar Heel, NC thanks to ramped-up enforcement measures and immigration raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2007.

Kammer’s glaring lack of labor history knowledge coupled with the anti-immigrant mission of his employer can serve as the only possible explanations for his gross misrepresentation of what happened at Smithfield between 1994 and 2009. The UFCW’s organizing win was not the result of immigration raids, but rather a bitter labor struggle that unified the workforce and culminated in a game-changing legal dispute:

1994 & 1997: The UFCW loses its first two elections amidst allegations of widespread coercion, intimidation, and targeted layoffs.

2000: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issues a decision finding massive violations of labor laws on behalf of Smithfield.

2004: The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirms the 2000 decision, finding that Smithfield had engaged in “intense and widespread” coercion in both elections. Smithfield agrees to hold a third union election, but the UFCW argues that the company should recognize card-check organizing instead.

2007: Smithfield files a federal lawsuit against the UFCW, accusing the union of libel and slander.

2008: When the suit is settled, both parties agree to another closely supervised election which the UFCW wins 2,041 to 1,879.

2009: Nearly 7 months after the union win, Tar Heel workers ratify their first union contract.

Kammer is also apparently ignorant to the well-known fact that immigration raids have more often been the bane of a union organizer’s existence. Following the Smithfield immigration raids, union officials claimed that Smithfield had collaborated with ICE authorities to discourage its workers from organizing. Smithfield’s immigrant intimidation tactics were also extensively documented in a Human Rights Watch report as having been used to crush union organizing efforts. Union organizer Eduardo Peña compared the Smithfield immigration raids to a “nuclear bomb.” Ultimately, the immigration measures backfired on Smithfield. In 2006, over 300 workers walked out in protest of the company’s immigration tactics. The success of the workplace action impressed African American workers and fueled increased unity between them and Latino workers.

It’s true that immigrant workers — both documented and undocumented — are difficult to organize. However, it’s a problem that could be solved more cheaply and more effectively with mechanisms like the ones provided in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which make it harder for employers to intimidate workers that are trying to organize.

The UFCW couldn’t comment on Kammer’s report due to the Smithfield lawsuit settlement which prevents them from discussing the terms of the organizing process. However, they weren’t too fond of Kammer’s last report which also advocated for increased immigration raids and enforcement-only solutions from a deceptively pro-labor perspective.

Nativist Mark Krikorian Warns That ‘Saddam Hussein’s BFFs Are Coming To Town Near You’

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), hit a new low this week when he warned National Review readers that 1,350 of Saddam Hussein’s best friends will be entering the U.S. Though not readily apparent, Krikorian is talking about the State Department’s decision to let a group of Iraqi Palestinians into the country as refugees. The U.S. hasn’t accepted many Palestinian refugees from Gaza or the West Bank in an effort to avoid stepping on Israel’s toes, but Iraqi Palestinians fall in a different category for many reasons. Krikorian writes:

“Besides the specific problem of welcoming to our shores people who danced in the streets at the destruction of the Twin Towers, there’s the more general issue of resettling as refugees people who have somewhere else to go…Resettlement in America, regardless of the total numbers (and I obviously prefer lower numbers), should be reserved only for those who can’t stay where they are and will never have anywhere else to go.”

It’s unclear whether Krikorian’s limited knowledge of the subject is driven more by his xenophobic agenda or intellectual laziness. Iraqi Palestinians are definitely not in a position to stay where they are and they have limited options in terms of where they could possibly go. Iraq’s Palestinian community is largely made up of those who were already driven from their homes in 1948 and others that were expelled from Kuwait in 1991. According to Refugees International, following the U.S. invasion, Iraqi Palestinians have fled killings, kidnappings, torture, and death threats as nearly 3,000 of them were left stranded in three of the “most desolate refugee camps in the world” along the border between Syria and Iraq. Most of the Arab world has shut its doors, as Europe and Canada have already accepted the responsibility of several hundred refugees. For many in the State Department and international community, accepting these individuals is “part of a moral imperative” the U.S. has to “clean up the refugee crisis created by invading Iraq.”

Krikorian’s suggestion that Iraqi Palestinians are terrorists is based on the same shamefully misleading logic that the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq. While it is true that Saddam treated them well, they are a far cry from being Saddam loyalists. Iraqi Palestinians are “apolitical,” and “basically desperate, scared, miserable and ready to just get out of Iraq,” says Human Rights Watch refugee policy director Bill Frelick.

Krikorian doesn’t just think that the U.S. refugee program is a load of crap, he’s also suggesting we dump our “problems” into the backyards of other countries. Krikorian insists that there must be some other country for the Iraqi Palestinians to settle in, preferably somewhere within the Arab League of Nations. Krikorian told the Christian Science Monitor:

“This is politically a real hot potato…[A]merica has become a dumping ground for the State Department’s problems — they’re tossing their problems over their head into Harrisburg, Pa., or Omaha, Neb.”

Krikorian’s perception of Iraqi Palestinian refugees isn’t just cold-hearted and stringent, it’s ignorant. In fact, it’s surprising he’s even recognizing their right to simply exist as individuals seeing as he’s previously described their homeland as having “no past, no distinctiveness, no commonality other than being the negation of Israel, the anti-Israel — anti-matter, if you will, on the periodic table of nations.”

Mark Krikorian And CIS Conflate ‘Uninsured Crisis’ With ‘Immigration Crisis’

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), recently told Michigan’s WXMI-GR news that the biggest growth in the uninsured has come from an increase in immigration — both legal and illegal. According to Krikorian, “From 1989 on, more than 70% of the increase in the total number of uninsured people is immigrants or their young kids.” Watch it:

CIS’ “findings” were also featured in Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert newsletter. Corsi is already well known for authoring two error-ridden anti-Obama books. His “controversial and often bizarre views,” include xenophobic government conspiracy theories as expressed in his book, “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada.” Stephen Camarota, Director of CIS Research, told Corsi, “It is not too much to say that the nation’s problem with those lacking health care insurance is being driven by the nation’s immigration policy.” Krikorian is also quoted as saying, “We don’t have an uninsured crisis…We have an immigration crisis.”

What Corsi, Krikorian, and Camarota all conveniently fail to mention is that there were years during the post-1989 period during which the number of uninsured native-born citizens dropped dramatically. By leaving out this significant piece of information, anti-immigrant zealots are able to make it look as if immigrants were a larger share of the total increase in the uninsured than is really the case.

In a personal email correspondence, Dr. Walter Ewing, Senior Researcher at the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) further criticizes CIS for muddying the national health care debate with their anti-immigrant agenda. “Given that nearly 80 percent of the uninsured adults and children in this country are U.S. citizens, it is difficult to fathom how Mark Krikorian can treat this as an immigration issue,” says Ewing.

Ezra Klein has pointed out that excluding immigrants from a national health care system, as groups like CIS advocate, could do more harm than good as unskilled or semi-skilled insured native workers are left to compete with cheaper uninsured undocumented immigrants. As CIS and their anti-immigrant allies exploit the health care issue to make the case against immigration, some have gone as far to argue that immigration reform which includes a legalization program for undocumented immigrants could actually solve labor cost disparities and pave the way for health care reform:

“Most immigrants—legal and illegal—to this country are hard-working, young, and in relatively good physical shape (especially compared to native-born Americans). They make far fewer demands on the public purse than, for example, the average retiring baby boomer. If placed on a pathway to citizenship, they comprise a potentially huge new block of taxpayers—taxpayers that could be critical to balancing the long-term ledger for health care, social security, and other entitlements.”

SF Chronicle Reporter Honored By Anti-Immigrant Group Blamed For Hate Crimes

San Francisco’s alternative news source, Beyond Chron, pointed out yesterday that San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken was honored by the vehemently anti-immigrant group, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), when they awarded him with their “Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration” last week.

According to Beyond Chron, Van Derbeken won the same award that was bestowed upon Lou Dobbs for “attacking San Francisco’s two-decade-old Sanctuary Ordinance and perpetuated harmful stereotypes against immigrant children.” Beyond Chron claims that Van Derbeken is partly responsible for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “hasty” decision to issue a new policy “that puts innocent children in danger and undermines the fundamental right to due process.”

During his Q&A that CIS conveniently edited out of their video of the event, Van Derbeken admitted that he has often been accused of discrimination and biased reporting:

Q: Have you been accused of being racist or –

MR. VAN DERBEKEN: Yes.

Q: – intolerant or anti-immigrant or –

MR. VAN DERBEKEN: Yes, yes, yes. (Laughter.) Hysterical, unfair, biased, awful, evil, anti-Christ, yeah. (Laughter.)

At another point, Van Derbeken was asked who the “voices of sanity” were on the subject of immigration. To which he replied:

MR. VAN DERBEKEN : Well, they’re viewed as lunatics. I mean, the people who are offended by this are thought of as being right-wing lunatics, in the context of this sort of closed loop of San Francisco politics.

It turns out Van Derbeken and CIS share something in common. This past week, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund released a new report that called out CIS, along with several other anti-immigration groups, for having “inflamed the immigration debate by invoking the dehumanizing, racist stereotypes and bigotry of hate groups.” The report tied their hateful rhetoric to an overwhelming rise in hate crimes directed at Latinos and individuals “perceived” as immigrants.